reflexives in subject position

[Nino Amiridze]

    Dear colleagues,

I would really appreciate it if you could give me any references on
reflexives in subject position. Or perhaps any of you know a language(s)
allowing reflexives in subject position.

My native language Georgian besides the "normal" reflexivization

(1) prezident-ma       ixsna         tavis-i    tav-i
    president-erg   he-saved-him   self's-nom  head-nom
          "The president saved himself"

allows subject reflexives as well:

(2) tavis-ma     tav-ma       ixsna        president-i
   self's-erg   head-erg   he-saved-him   president-nom
(a) "It was the president who saved himself, no one else is responsible for
saving him" (emphatic reading);
(b) "The president was out of the hard situation only because of himself
(his past doings, personal charm, etc.) but he could not even
imagine/know/accounted for that" (non-volitional reading).

The sentence is ambiguous between the (a) and (b) readings. It can have
either of them but not both at the same time.

The reflexive phrase in (2) has an ergative case marker and functions as
subject just like as the ergative noun phrase in (3):

(3) mcvel-ma       ixsna      president-i
   guard-erg   he-saved-him   president-nom
      "The guard saved the president"

It has to be noted that in (2) there are other meanings (emphatic and
non-volitional) more central than reflexive one. Of course, there is a
reflexive semantics there in (2) but normally no one pronounces it when one
needs to express only reflexive meaning. For expressing reflexivity (1) is
quite all right.

Thank you very much.

Sincerely,

    Nino Amiridze